130 THE BARREN-GROUND CARIBOU 



of the Caribou being very scarce, and all were 

 anxious about meat. In January I travelled south 

 on the great sea-like area of ice-bound Reindeer 

 Lake. At that time Caribou were plentiful on 

 the lake except toward the south end, where there 

 were few, and the people at the Hudson Bay 

 Post then had very little meat. Possibly Caribou 

 came down after I left, for I believed the bucks 

 to be still working south. 



However, the Indians tell me that when the 

 Caribou fail to pass their neighbourhood as they 

 have been accustomed to doing, they are some- 

 times forced to travel and camp in a favoured 

 locality so that they may kill their winter store of 

 meat and not starve. 



Whenever I had the opportunity I closely 

 questioned Indians regarding the numbers of 

 the Barren-ground Caribou, and every individual 

 was agreed that in the neighbourhood of Rein- 

 deer Lake and in the territory north of it, those 

 animals were more plentiful in 1914 than in former 

 days. There is one factor which perhaps accounts 

 largely for this increase of Caribou, and that is 

 that the Chipewyan Indians who inhabit the 

 territory directly south of the Eskimo country, 

 and who are called in their own language " The 

 Caribou Eaters," are fast dying out, victims 

 of interbreeding and consumption. It is sad, but 

 woefully true. Philip Merasty, an old halfbreed, 

 61 years of age, who, when a child, came with his 

 people from lie a la Crosse to camp at the north 

 end of Reindeer Lake, whence plentiful Caribou 

 meat had drawn them, told me that when he came 

 there were then three hundred Chipewyans in the 



